Carbon based Nanomaterials: Synthesis and Applications (A Review)

Over the last few years, carbon nanomaterials have been widely used in different applications such as, sensors, super capacitors, batteries, fabrication of composites, solar cells, fuel cells etc. the reason for such conspicuous and remarkable properties of these carbon nano materials is because it consists of same number of atoms. Although, graphite and diamond, both are made up of strong covalent linkage of carbon atoms., in graphite, each carbon atom uses its three electrons to form three single bonds to form a linear sheet. Whereas diamond usesall its four electrons to form four single bonds and resulting in a 3-D structure. Buckminster fullerene, is another carbonal-lotrope, often referred to as a buckyball, fullerene or simply C₆₀. The carbon atoms in this highly symmetrical C60 are arranged to form a closed shell that resembles a soccer ball. In early 1990s, an incredibly new carbon allotrope in a form of a hexagonal tube was discovered which was named Carbon Nanotubes. These tubes were just rolled up sheets of graphite but had totally different properties compared to graphite. Another form of carbon, graphene, understood as 2D layered material which was just one atom thick was discovered later on. Carbon-based nanomaterials, therefore, havebeen used immensely in recent technology due to their extraordinary and exceptional electrical, thermal, chemical, mechanical, properties worldwide. They have also evolved as major and important mate-rialand reason-to-be-studied material in various applicationssuch as field emission display devices, composite materials, drug delivery, sensors, electronics, energy storage, etc.